Brian Garfield (15 page)

“They ride like
soldados,
” Miguel said and Boag saw the sweat on his wrinkled face.

Boag felt himself tense up. The riders were still better than a mile out but they were drumming forward like a big locomotive at full throttle. A banner of dust raveled high in their wake.

“Where's my two pistols, Miguel?”

“Under the bed where you sleep.”

Then Boag's shoulders dropped an inch. “It's all right. That's Captain McQuade.”

“You have very good eyes,
Señor.
”

Dorotea crossed the court and Boag saw Don Pablo appear at his door on the veranda. Boag stepped through the gate and stood just outside it and waited for the horsemen.

They swirled to a halt. Hoofs churned up clots that spattered the adobe wall. Captain McQuade's grin cracked the coating of dust on his face. “So you made it. I expected you would.”

“I'm still takin' nourishment,” Boag acknowledged. “Light and set a while.”

“Can't, Sergeant, we're in a little bit of a hurry.”

“You got
federates
on your ass?”

“I think we shook them off. But there's a good big fight shaping up north of here. I'd hate to miss out on it.”

Boag grinned.

“You well enough to ride?”

“It still ain't my fight, Captain.”

“That's too bad. I'll talk you into it one of these days.” Captain McQuade swept off his hat and dragged the crook of his elbow across his forehead. “There's two of Pickett's rawhiders hanging around the town of Tres Osos,” he said, and replaced the hat square across his eyebrows.

“Thank you kindly, Captain.”

“Well take it easy, Boag.” And then they were moving: a rise and fall of Captain McQuade's arm, a looping wheel of two dozen horses, a thunder of hoof-fall.

Boag stepped inside and shut the door against the dust. Looking through the view-port he had a glimpse of the drag riders in Captain McQuade's troop: they were hauling a gun-cart and there was a ten-barrel Gatling gun mounted on it. Captain McQuade must have won a battle and taken that as part of the spoils.

In the twilight Don Pablo struggled down the stairs to the dining room where Miguel had set the table with their few plates and glasses arranged in formal patterns on the bare wood. Dorotea served up a meal that tasted very good to Boag.

Don Pablo was looking a little stronger than he had; it was possibly because there was color in his cheeks but that might have been the flush of fever, it was hard to tell.

Boag said, “How long before they throw you out of here?”

“Perhaps the end of this month. Perhaps my creditors will be kind and extend us a few weeks before we are dispossessed.”

“Then I might as well get moving.”

Dorotea rolled her eyes toward him. Don Pablo said, “You are not strong enough yet.”

“I'm strong enough to ride. The rest will take care of itself in the saddle.”

“But are you fast enough?”

“I never was fast. Just steady.”

“You will need a little money I think. I have a little for you.”

“You need to feed yourselves.”

“There is enough for both.”

“Then I won't dispute it. I'm obliged.”

“It is we who are obliged,” Don Pablo said.

But in the morning when Don Pablo came down one step at a time to watch Boag saddle the horse he said, “You will recall what was said the last time you rode away from here.” He bent over to cough. “It still pertains.”

“Other words, if I don't get some gold in my pockets you don't want me to come back.”

“Not for Dorotea.”

“Well you're her husband.”

“I used to be,” Don Pablo said. “Now I am her friend. I would not wish her to follow a dirt-poor Negro from town to town.”

“What about a dirt-poor Castilian?”

Don Pablo considered it. In the end he conceded, “You have a point.”

Boag smiled and went to say his
hasta luego
to the
señora.

6

He didn't push himself; he used up four slow-riding days getting to Tres Osos. It was one of those
mestizo
towns high in the Sierra where most of the people had no Spanish, they talked an
Indio
dialect that Boag didn't understand.

The village welcomed him spectacularly: it was a Saturday afternoon and there was a wedding. The fiesta was accompanied by an earsplitting spectacle of Mexican fireworks and the entire population was turned out in elaborate costumes the women had probably spent a year making. It was a profusion of movement and color and noise. Boag sat on a rock up in the trees above the village, holding the reins of his horse, watching. He tried to disregard all the wheeling color; he was looking for two gringos not partaking of the festival.

He didn't see them for two hours. The village was a loose assemblage of huts that crawled down the corkscrew sides of a narrow canyon shaded by ranks of enormous pines that marched down the mountain like lancers with their weapons at the ready. The road ran close along the bank of the dry creek, wandering from one side of the canyon to the other. In seasons of heavy rain or during the spring thaw he expected not only the stream but the road also ran a foot deep in rushing water. Right now it was two months since the thaw and he didn't know of much rain since then, and the whole forest looked ready to go up in flame but the villagers were happily flinging their fireworks in the air with frivolous abandon and Boag watched with alarm as some of the sparks arced into the woods.

Late in the afternoon the honeymoon couple went away in a weathered buckboard and the fat women went back to their huts and the men settled down in the plaza for some industrious drinking.

The air stank of sulphur smoke as if a battle had been fought. The church bells had quit ringing and the yelling was done; everyone had gone hoarse. The silence seemed unnatural. In that atmosphere Boag saw the two rawhiders emerge from the shade of a pine copse beside a corral that contained four or five horses and several burros. They must have been there all the time, sitting with their backs to the corral fence watching the show.

They walked across the plaza into a square hut. Boag watched the place patiently. Within three minutes the rawhiders reappeared in the doorway. One of them had a small jug so that hut must be the
cantina.

Some old men on the plaza shouted at the rawhiders, inviting them to take part in the remnants of the feast. The two rawhiders went over to them and sat down on the ground to eat. There was a thin one and a fat one. Boag remembered the fat one; he believed the fat one went by the name of Jackson.

By the time the rawhiders finished eating it would be pretty dark. Jackson and his friend would probably finish their small jug on the plaza and then perhaps they would return to the
cantina
for another jug and a game of cards or monte or darts. They would do that because there was nothing else to do in a village like this and it was clear the two men were waiting for something that wasn't going to happen right away. Either they were hiding out or they were waiting for someone to arrive and meet them.

At any rate the thing to do was to get inside the
cantina
and wait for them there.

Boag led his horse back into the trees and began to make a wide circle through the forest to come up behind the
cantina.
He hoped the place had a back door.

7

The weedy ground behind the
cantina
was strewn with broken jugs and bits of splintered woodwork, the souvenirs of lusty brawls. It smelled of urine.

There was a back door and Boag opened it without announcing himself.

There was no real bar. A big plank table served. Jugs were cluttered on it and a half-asleep proprietor sat in a chair behind the table. He had a little wooden box with coins in it. Probably he had a brewing shack and a small distillery back in the woods near a spring.

Two Indians at a table watched Boag enter the room. Nobody seemed surprised, let alone alarmed. It was the kind of place where it took a great deal to arouse people.

Boag bought a small jug and settled down behind a table facing the front door.

Someone outside had brought a guitar and the rapid-fire music reached Boag faintly. There were occasional bursts of laughter in the night; now and then a footstep moved by, and Boag would stiffen and fasten his eyes on the door. Three townsfolk came in and settled at a front table to play cards. The two Indians finished their jug and left the place. The proprietor's face was tilted in disgust as he contemplated the contents of his wooden box. Here it was Saturday night but most everybody was played-out by the wedding festival and the
cantina's
trade was shot to hell.

Boag heard boots with spurs on them and he knew it was Jackson and his
compadre.
He made his simple preparations and watched them walk in.

They didn't see him at first. They were off guard; Jackson was telling a story:

“… and she says to Ben Stryker, she says ‘That man wanted to give me four dollars to sleep with him!' and old Ben pulls his iron on the boy and puts two good ones right in his balls. And you know what Ben Stryker did then? He says, ‘I reckon that'll be a lesson for rich boys that try to come down here and double the price of everthang.'”

They were both bent over laughing their guts out when Jackson picked up Boag in the corner of his vision. Jackson went bolt still and straightened up very slowly. It took his partner a little longer to catch on and then the partner gave Jackson a puzzled look.

Jackson said, “Now, I know you.”

“I'm Boag.”

“That's mighty nice of you. I expect you've got a gun under that table.”

“Two of them.”

“You think that's fair, boy?”

“I count two of you.”

Sweating, Jackson wiped his palms dry on his buttocks. He was a sag-bellied suety man with droopy jowls and big hard hands. His face was covered with dust and insect bites.

Boag said, “You gents might shuck your irons and sit down here.”

Jackson hesitated and his partner looked at him, but it was all right; Jackson had made up his mind when he hadn't started for his gun the moment he'd recognized Boag.

Jackson unbuckled his belt carefully and hung it over the back of the nearest chair, waited for his partner to do the same and then they both walked up to Boag's table, dragged chairs over with their toes and sat down slowly as if they were afraid the chairs were about to explode under their butts.

Boag said, “I know Jackson. What do you go by?”

“Smith.”

“Sure enough,” Boag said. “You folks want a drink?” He nodded his head toward the jug in the middle of the table and Jackson nodded his head and reached out for the jug. Jackson took a swallow and set the jug down. He didn't offer it to Smith. He just sat turning the jug casually in his fingers, thinking about throwing it in Boag's face, and Boag said, “Let that thing alone unless you're ready to drink from it.”

“I'd sure like to try you on, boy.”

“You won't get the chance,” Boag said. “One white trash more or less ain't worth dying for. I ain't got time to waste in disputations with you.”

He was watching Smith out of the edge of his eye. A corded muscle tensed under Smith's shirt sleeve, his hand was easing toward the edge of the table. Boag reached across and grabbed Smith's shirt-front and pulled Smith's face down onto the tabletop. Smith's teeth clicked, his jaw sagged, his eyes rolled up.

Jackson said drily, “You lied about one of them guns.”

“No, I left it in my lap.”

“Maybe you lied about both of them.”

“You got one quick way to find out, fat man.” Boag smiled amiably. “I got one in here with your name on it, Jackson.”

“What you got against me, boy? What I ever do to you?”

“Sure. Now you can tell me you weren't one of those guns shooting at me from the riverboat when I went in the water.”

“What if I was? You asked for that.”

“'Course I did,” Boag muttered. “Now let's talk about Mr. Pickett a while.”

Smith was sitting up. Groggy. Fingering his jaw. His Adam's apple rode up and down his throat in spasms; his thin face looked sick. “Christ I think you bust my jaw.”

“No,” Boag said. “But it'll hurt to chew for a week or so. You better stick to soft food.”

He went back to the fat one: “I said let's talk about Mr. Pickett.”

“What about him?”

“I ain't greedy, Jackson, I don't want more than you got. All I want is the name of a place.”

“What place?”

“Where I can find Mr. Pickett.”

Smith snickered and winced and touched his jaw very gently.

Jackson said, “Listen, he double-crossed us the same way he double-crossed you. He tooken off with the gold, him and Ben Stryker and Gutierrez and a couple others. The rest of us scattered and hid out on account we didn't want them gunning after us one by one.”

Boag smiled a little. “And you expect me to buy that right off the shelf”

“It's the truth, I can't hep it. Smith, you tell him.”

“I ain't likely to believe him more than you,” Boag said. “Now why don't we try it again. Pretend like I asked the same question and you get to answer it like you never heard it before.”

“Boy, the trouble with you, you don't wear your hat square on your head. You think we'd be up here in this miserable hole if we had some of that gold to spend?”

“Why don't you just tell me why you're up here in this miserable hole.”

“I told you boy, we hiding out from Pickett's guns.”

Boag sighed. “How long you been riding for Mr. Pickett, Jackson? Twenty years?”

“Twenty-three. And the thanks I get——”

“Let's us go up in the woods a ways,” Boag said. “We'll set and jaw.” He rammed one of the revolvers into his belt and plucked the jug off the table. “We'll take this here for company.”